In recent years, bankers have succumbed to the idea that the credit world was all about numbers and complex computer models. These days, however, this assumption looks ever more of a falsehood.

For as anyone with a classical education knows, credit takes its root from the Latin word credere ("to trust") And as the current credit turmoil now mutates into ever-more virulent forms, it is faith - or, rather, the lack of it - that has turned a subprime squall into a what is arguably the worst financial -crisis in 80 years.